50 Fun Facts About Seville

Seville's Plaza de España doubled as a royal city on the planet Naboo in which film series?

Star Wars used the plaza in Attack of the Clones for exterior shots of Theed, the capital of Naboo. The half-circle of tiled buildings had been built for a 1929 world's fair.

Seville's Alcázar palace and gardens stood in for the land of Dorne in which fantasy television series?

Game of Thrones filmed part of its fifth season there, in a palace complex that began life as an Islamic citadel in the 10th century.

Which explorer's tomb has stood in Seville Cathedral since 1899, after earlier burials in Santo Domingo and Havana?

Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid in 1506, and his remains crossed the sea twice before researchers used DNA to tie the Seville bones to him.

Seville's bitter oranges are shipped once a year to which country, where they are made into marmalade?

Britain's marmalade makers prize Seville oranges because they hold more pectin than sweet ones, so the preserve sets better and goes further.

Which hero of Greek and Roman myth is said to have founded Seville after sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar?

Hercules tops a Roman column in Seville's Alameda promenade beside one of Julius Caesar, who is honoured as the city's restorer.

Which opera heroine works at Seville's Royal Tobacco Factory, a vast building that now houses the city's university?

Carmen is one of more than 150 operas set in Seville, a total counted by experts in 2012. Bizet made her a cigarette maker at the factory.

Seville's giant wooden Metropol Parasol is better known to locals as Las Setas, which means what in English?

The Mushrooms became the official name after the city learned the architect had trademarked Metropol Parasol and would charge for its use.

Which art of song, guitar and dance does Seville celebrate with La Bienal, a festival lasting nearly a month?

Flamenco joined UNESCO's list of humanity's intangible heritage in 2010, and Seville's festival bills itself as the biggest event of its kind.

Which 1990s dance hit by Los del Río shares its name with a Seville district and its revered Virgin of Hope?

Macarena topped the US Hot 100 for fourteen weeks in 1996, and the duo behind it come from Dos Hermanas, a town just south of Seville.

Saint Isidore of Seville, a bishop who compiled an encyclopedia of all knowledge, is a proposed patron saint of what?

The internet reminded admirers of his Etymologiae, a 7th-century attempt to gather everything known into one work that saved many ancient texts.

Seville is the capital and largest city of which autonomous community in the far south of Spain?

Andalusia's high court sits in Granada, but its parliament meets in Seville in the old Hospital of the Five Holy Wounds.

Ships leaving the inland Port of Seville sail about 80 kilometres down the Guadalquivir to reach which body of water?

The Atlantic Ocean is close enough to give Seville the only river harbour in Spain, on the country's only major navigable river.

Which explorer's fleet of five ships left Seville in 1519 on the first voyage to sail around the world?

Ferdinand Magellan died in the Philippines, and only one of his ships, the Victoria, made it home, with 18 of the original 270 men.

Seville Cathedral's completion ended which church's thousand-year reign as the largest cathedral in the world?

Hagia Sophia lost the title in the early 16th century. Local tradition says Seville's clergy vowed to build so grandly that people would think them mad.

Seville Cathedral, built over the city's main mosque, is the world's largest cathedral in which architectural style?

Gothic builders kept the mosque's courtyard, and its fountain and orange trees still stand beside the cathedral as the Patio de los Naranjos.

Seville's Giralda was first built in the 12th century as which part of the city's great mosque?

The minaret was modelled on the Koutoubia in Marrakesh and has a sister in Rabat's unfinished Hassan Tower, all three raised by the Almohads.

Seville's Giralda tower is named after the Giraldillo, a bronze statue on its summit that serves as what?

A weather vane since 1568, the figure crowns a tower climbed by 35 ramps that were built wide enough for beasts of burden.

Which composer wrote The Barber of Seville, the 1816 comic opera about the scheming barber Figaro?

Gioachino Rossini based it on the first of Beaumarchais's three Figaro plays. Mozart had already turned the second into The Marriage of Figaro.

Which painter of Las Meninas was born in Seville in 1599 and trained there under the artist Francisco Pacheco?

Diego Velázquez married his teacher's daughter in 1618 before becoming the leading artist at the court of King Philip IV.

Seville's riverside Torre del Oro, a watchtower built by the Almohads around 1220, has a name meaning what?

Tower of Gold refers to the golden shine it cast on the water, and it anchored a great chain that could close the Guadalquivir to enemy ships.

Spain's first high-speed rail line opened in April 1992, in time for Seville's Expo, linking Seville with which city?

Madrid is 476 km away, yet by 1994 the AVE trains were making the trip in 2 hours 20 minutes at speeds of up to 300 km/h.

The Guadalquivir Valley around Seville holds Spain's hottest cities, which has earned it what kitchen nickname?

The frying pan of Spain earns its name: Seville's summer highs average above 36 °C, and its airport recorded 46.6 °C in July 1995.

Which disaster struck Seville in 1649, made worse by flooding of the Guadalquivir, and devastated its population?

A plague epidemic emptied the city so badly that its population did not recover until the early 19th century.

A riverside castle in Seville served from 1481 to 1785 as the seat of which powerful institution?

The Spanish Inquisition took over the Castle of San Jorge, once the area's first Christian church. Its foundations now hold a museum about the tribunal.

Which Seville neighbourhood on the west bank of the Guadalquivir is famed for its pottery workshops and seafaring past?

Triana keeps a pottery museum in the old Santa Ana tile factory, and a school there once trained seamen bound for the Americas.

Seville's Santa Cruz quarter, beside the Alcázar and now the main tourist district, housed which medieval community?

Jewish families were gathered there after the Castilian conquest, and one former synagogue survives as the church of Santa María la Blanca.

The tiled alcoves lining the curve of Seville's Plaza de España each represent a different what?

Spanish province by province, the alcoves have become photo spots where visitors pose in front of the tiles for their home region.

Seville's April Fair, now a week of dancing in rows of decorated tents, began in 1846 as a market for what?

Livestock traders came first, but within a year the first three party tents had appeared, and by 2012 the fairground held more than a thousand.

Rebujito, a typical drink at Seville's April Fair, mixes lemon-lime soda with which fortified wine?

Sherry in a rebujito is usually a dry fino or manzanilla, fuel for fairground dancing that runs from nine at night until morning.

During Seville's Holy Week processions, what do the robed penitents wear so they can repent without being recognised?

Tall pointed hoods called capirotes hide every face as nearly 70 brotherhoods walk from their home churches to the cathedral and back.

Which Roman emperor, famous for a victory column in Rome, was born in the Roman city of Italica near Seville?

Trajan's home town was founded in 206 BC by Scipio for his wounded veterans, and its amphitheatre was the third largest in the empire.

Real Betis of Seville adopted green and white stripes after a founder obtained kit fabric from which Scottish club?

Celtic's link came through a founder who had studied in Scotland, and Betis marked it in 2017 by playing a match in Glasgow-style hoops.

Sevilla FC have lifted which European football trophy more times than any other club, including three in a row?

The Europa League and its forerunner, the UEFA Cup, went to Sevilla seven times between 2006 and 2023, with a hat-trick from 2014 to 2016.

Which legendary seducer first reached the stage in a 17th-century Spanish play titled The Trickster of Seville?

Don Juan jokingly invites a statue on a tomb to dinner in the play, traditionally credited to Tirso de Molina, and the stone guest turns up.

Seville Cathedral's Door of the Lizard is named after which animal, a figure of which hangs from the ceiling?

A crocodile hangs by the door that leads in from the Court of the Oranges, once the washing courtyard of the city's main mosque.

Where in Missouri does a replica of Seville's Giralda tower stand over the Country Club Plaza shopping district?

Kansas City raised its copy in 1967, decades after US tributes such as Chicago's Wrigley Building and San Francisco's Ferry Building clock tower.

Tapas, the small dishes at the heart of Seville's bar culture, take their name from a Spanish verb meaning what?

To cover is the root because the snacks were probably first served on small plates set over drinks like lids.

During Seville's Holy Week, what job is done by the teams of men known as costaleros?

Carrying the floats takes 24 to 54 men hidden behind a curtain, so each one, usually over a tonne, seems to move by itself.

The name Guadalquivir, given to the waterway that flows through Seville, comes from Arabic words meaning what?

The great river was the Baetis to the Romans, a name that lives on in Real Betis, one of Seville's two big football clubs.

Which Spanish architect designed Seville's Alamillo Bridge, hung from a single leaning tower, for Expo '92?

Santiago Calatrava made the tower heavy enough to balance the deck alone, so the bridge was the first of its kind to need no back stays.

A Seville nobleman's pilgrimage to which holy city in 1519 gave the Casa de Pilatos palace its name?

Jerusalem inspired him to found a Way of the Cross at the palace, pacing out the 1,321 steps said to separate Pilate's court from Calvary.

Which Castilian king, later made a saint, captured Seville from Muslim rule in 1248 and lies in its cathedral?

Ferdinand III was canonised in 1671 and is Seville's patron saint; his son and heir is buried in the same royal chapel.

King Peter I of Castile, who built the finest palace in Seville's Alcázar in the 1360s, is known by which nickname?

The Cruel was the name that stuck, though admirers called him the Just, and Granada's ruler probably sent craftsmen to help build his palace.

Which Spanish style, rich in Islamic ornament, shaped the 14th-century royal palace in Seville's Alcázar?

Mudéjar halls there carry an Arabic inscription as well as a Latin one, and the palace closely resembles the Alhambra's of the same years.

Seville's UNESCO World Heritage Site pairs the cathedral and Alcázar with which former merchants' exchange?

Archive of the Indies shelves run to some nine kilometres, holding about 80 million pages on Spain's empire, including a job request from Cervantes.

Seville lost its grip on Spain's trade with the Americas in 1717, when the House of Trade moved to which port?

Cádiz took over as silting made the Guadalquivir harder for large ships to climb to Seville, ending two centuries of the city's dominance.

Seville's Plaza de España and the pavilions of María Luisa Park were built for which world's fair of 1929?

Ibero-American Exposition crowds were welcomed by King Alfonso XIII, and several of its national pavilions now serve as consulates.

Curro, the mascot of Seville's Expo '92, was created by Heinz Edelmann, the designer best known for which Beatles film?

Yellow Submarine's designer drew Curro as a white bird with elephant legs and a rainbow beak, and named him with a pet form of Francisco.

Seville's motto NO8DO is traditionally read as King Alfonso X saying the loyal city did not do what to him?

Abandon him it did not, the legend goes: Seville stood by the king when his son Sancho rebelled. The 8 is a skein of wool, madeja in Spanish.

Which Latin name did Seville bear under Roman rule, before Arabic speakers adapted it into Ishbiliya?

Hispalis became Ishbiliya because Arabic has no p sound, so speakers swapped in a b and gave the ending an Arabic form.